A tool, such as a mold, die, or other object formation apparatus is used to repeatedly form or create substantially similar objects or products. Conventionally, the tool is formed by machining or “working” a block of material in a certain manner, thereby forming or creating the tool in a desired shape and geometrical configuration. Alternatively, the tool may be formed by a laminar process in which various sectional members are created and selectively coupled, effective to allow the coupled members to cooperatively form the tool.
Particularly, a formed tool is adapted to be used in a wide variety of processes to create these objects or apparatuses and many of these processes cause the tool to become hot and/or cause the produced object or product to become hot. The created heat may cause the produced product to be “deformed” or to be an undesired shape or configuration.
In order to address these heat related difficulties, holes are typically drilled into the conventionally formed tool to create cooling passages within the tool. Typically, a cooling medium such as water or oil is passed through the tool to extract heat from the part produced and from the tool
While the foregoing approach does allow for the creation of cooling passages, it represents a relatively inefficient and costly process which undesirably increases the overall cost of production and may undesirably create distortion in the formed part. Such distortion is particularly undesirable since many of these parts are relatively expensive and may not be salvagable. Thus, the distorted parts must be scrapped which adds cost and inefficiency to the manufacturing process.
Additionally, in high-pressure manufacturing techniques such as injection molding, attention has to be given to adequately support the tool surface so that it does not deflect under molding pressures. Therefore, cooling holes which are drilled into a tool must be at least a minimum distance from the lowest or deepest contour cut into the mold and portions of the mold which are not cut as deep as the lowest contour have more material (i.e., metal) to conduct heat through and undesirably cause uneven/inefficient cooling of the tool.
There is therefore a need for a method to selectively create cooling passages within a tool which overcomes some or all of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior techniques. Moreover, there is a further need to create a tool by the use of a method which allows cooling passages to be efficiently formed within the tool and which does not potentially cause distortion in the product produced. These and other needs are addressed by the present as is more fully delineated below.